Teatime! Also: Have Fun, Will Travel.

Backlogged much and I thought I'd just skip some things but then I thought I'd still like to have a record of what (little) I've done with the doll hobby this spring. If not for others, just for myself, when I read the old posts some day in the undefined future!

Actually, even though I haven't done all that much with my dolls lately, surprisingly I've been to a lot of dollmeets this spring! I'll try to post about the meets in chronological order so it might take some time to cover them all.

A few weeks back I went to Jyväskylä, a city in Central Finland. The trip was made on a very short notice and the original reason for me to go there was so that me and my dear friend Petunia could make reservations for fligths and hotels for our trip to ---!--- London next October! Apparently there was a dollmeet to be held on that same weekend there and Petunia invited me to come over. 

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Ajanpuutteen vuoksi suomenkieliset käännökset tulevat myöhemmin. Olen lähdössä matkalle Saksaan tänään illalla ja pakkaaminen on vielä tekemättä! :'D Kaikki jää viime tippaan kuten tavallista.
Käväisin jokunen aika sitten Jyväskylässä, jotta voisimme Petunian kanssa ostaa matkaliput ja varata hotellit lokakuun Lontoon matkaa varten. (ollaan taas lähdössä reissuun yhdessä, jeeee! En malta odottaa! x3 ) Paikkakunnalla sattui olemaan myös nukkemiitti käynnissä, johon Petunia minut ystävällisesti kutsui. Tässä hieman Jykylä-tunnelmia!

Tämän postauksen jälkeen seuraavaksi vuorossa Helsinki- ja Turku-miittien tunnelmia, mutta tässä välissä saatan postata myös jotain matkafiiliksiä mikäli saan WiFin käyttöön ja toimimaan! Jee jee.

Sillä välin pitäkää hauskaa vaikka Google Translatorin kanssa! :D

I've always wanted to visit Teeleidi, a Tea salon that I'd heard a lot about from Petunia. The meet was held there so I got to finally visit and taste all kinds of nice tea varieties!
The lemon pie in the topmost pic was also very tasty!

They had so many different kinds of tea, it was hard to decide!

I'm a tea aficionado, and actually I like pure green tea, white tea or oolong tea without any added flavorings. But the flavored teas at Teeleidi were very tasty in fact! I was pretty surprised, since I don't usually like that kind of tea...

It would be awesome if we had such a nice teahouse in my hometown Turku or in Helsinki too! The house where Teeleidi keeps business is over a hundred years old (and yes, I asked, it's haunted! yay!)and was ideal for meets since it hosts several separate rooms where you can have your privacy with a small group.

All the details in Teeleidi's interior decoration were so awesome!

Ohh nooo! Only now, looking at this pic of the shelf I realized they had books offered for book crossing too! D: I would have wanted to check what they had!!! Oh well, next time... I love bookcrossing! (too bad the ones I've found before have been utterly boring...)

我が家のアイドル、エルノちゃん！Wagaya no Idoru. Eruno-chan! Our idol, Erno-chan! Erno had found a new pet, little Skelejohn! <3

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Meidän kunnianarvoisa idolimme, Erno-chan! Erno oli löytänyt uuden lemmikin, Skelejohnin!

Here's the group shot of the dolls that were at the meet. I only had little ones with me this time, Remy (of course), little fennec, Nendoroid Aoba and Maid Vel. Who is still in need of a name!

Almost all of my doll pics I took there were ruined because I took them against the light hat shone from the windows... :'(
But I had to include at least one of Petunia's Erno and my Maid Vel because Petunia did so many funny poses with them! (And both of them were bought at our trip to Japan so, nostalgia!)

Afterwards we went to eat at the American Diner with Petunia. We both had special Angus beef burgers and it was soooo tasty! I love fine dining but I will not say no to a good burger either! Defnitely one of the best burgers I've had in Finland. (but still, the top number 1 place is held by Grill Knallen in Korppoo... although that grill doesn't exist anymore and I can never have their super delicious burgers...)

I've been thinking I'd like to make posts of the different restaurant experiences I've had and post pics of the food here. Would anyone be interested in posts like that?
I'll put a doll or a figure in the same picture with the food too, just to keep it on topic! Heh, I usually do that anyway. :'D

I just thought that it would be fun to post reviews like that and stuff. I myself spent the 4 hour bustrip from Turku to Jyväskylä by looking up what kind of restaurants they had there. And found a particularly fun blog that reviewed restaurants in Jyväskylä. I find myself often searching for recommendations for things from blogs and I find it very nice if someone has taken the time to record their experiences for others to see! Since posts like that have been very useful to me, I'd like to pass that on! (Not implying that my posts of random blabber could be useful to anyone. :P )




After that we went to my hotel room and looked up some hotels and flights... and finally booked some! Yi-ppee! I'm so excited! It's been too long since my last visit to London and I've been aching to go there again... this will be my fourth time there.

We don't have any specific plans for our trip yet (other than the Sherlock Holmes Museum, because Petunia is a Sherlock fan... and me too, athough I'm a little bit more into the original Conan-Doyle Sherlock than BBC's version. But I have nothing against BBC Sherlock, and I have to say that Petunia's enthusiasm about it has rubbed on me a little. ;) I did go to watch the Christmas Special episode in ou local movie theater and I liked it!), mostly I think we'll just be walking around, taking the general atmosphere in and enjoying ourselves. (...I wonder if they still sell those tasty crab sandwiches...)

I'd also love to visit Sir John Soane's Museum again! It was such a peculiar and awesome place. I'm a museum kind of person. Some people find museums boring, I think they are brilliant! I'm also looking forward to recording our London adventures on Instagram!

A view from the Ibis Blackfriars. Picture property of Ibis Hotels.

We had a few hotels that we were considering, but decided on Ibis Blackfriars because of the good location, promising reviews on TripAdvisor and because my previous experiences with the Accor hotel chain have been good. (Admittedly I've only been to Ibis hotels in Germany but...)

Hmm, so excited about traveling at the moment! I'm also going for a trip to Germany. The opportunity to go there came on a short notice but I've always been a little impulsive. :D I've yet to post about my favorite things in Hamburg to Instagram and I'm super super excited that now I'll (hopefully) have the chance to show my love for that city via photos.

I got the super delicious Gabunomi - melon cream soda from Petunia as a gift! Ooooh! yayyyy! Now I don't have to wait for a year before I can have it again.
This soda is so good, we drank it all the time in Japan last summer. (Gabu is an onomatopoetic word for to "gulp" and "nomu" means to drink. So the name of the drink roughly translates to "To drink by gulping", which refers to the fact that the drink is so good you're hard-pressed not to gulp it down too fast! :D)

Also, Turre kindly gifted me the newest issue of Koiramme - Our Dogs, the magazine of the Finnish Kennel Club. Thank you both, I'm super happy about the gifts! <3

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Kiitos Turre ja Petunia kivoista lahjoista! <3

I took some souvenirs to home as well. The Oolong Milky-teas are for my friends and Temple of Heaven green tea for myself.

Next up the Helsinki and Turku-meets! (although if I can use some WiFi in Hamburg, I might upload something from there in the mean time!